Joanna Godden eBook

“But then I’m a single woman, and he being
a single man there’s no harm in it.”

“Do you think that a married woman should know
no man but her husband?”

“What did she marry a husband for?”

“Really, Joanna ... however, there’s no
use arguing with you. I’m sorry you’re
annoyed at the gossip, but to keep out of the gossip
here one would have to live like a cabbage. You
haven’t exactly kept out of it yourself.”

“Have done, do, with telling me that. They
only talk about me because I’m more go-ahead
than any of ’em, and make more money. Anyone
may talk about you that way and I shan’t mind.
But to have it said at the Woolpack as you, a married
woman, lets a man like Sir Harry be for ever hanging
around your house ...”

“Are you jealous?” said Ellen softly.
“Poor old Jo—­I’m sorry if I’ve
taken another of your men.”

Joanna opened her mouth and stared at her. At
first she hardly understood, then, suddenly grasping
what was in Ellen’s mind, she took in her breath
for a torrential explanation of the whole matter.
But the next minute she realized that this was hardly
the moment to say anything which would prejudice her
sister against Arthur Alce. If Ellen would value
him more as a robbery, then let her persist in her
delusion. The effort of silence was so great
that Joanna became purple and apoplectic—­with
a wild, grabbing gesture she turned away, and burst
out of the house into the drive, where her trap was
waiting.

Sec.26

The next morning Mene Tekel brought fresh news from
the Woolpack, and this time it was of a different
quality, warranted to allay the seething of Joanna’s
moral sense. Sir Harry Trevor had sold North Farthing
to a retired bootmaker. He was going to the South
of France for the winter, and was then coming back
to his sister’s flat in London, while she went
for a lecturing tour in the United States. The
Woolpack was very definitely and minutely informed
as to his doings, and had built its knowledge into
the theory that he must have had some more money left
him.

Joanna was delighted—­she forgave Sir Harry,
and Ellen too, which was a hard matter. None
the less, as November approached through the showers
and floods, she felt a little anxious lest he should
delay his going or perhaps even revoke it. However,
the first week of the month saw the arrival of the
bootmaker from Deal, with two van-loads of furniture,
and his wife and four grown-up daughters—­all
as ugly as roots, said the Woolpack. The Squire’s
furniture was sold by auction at Dover, from which
port his sailing was in due course guaranteed by credible
eye-witnesses. Joanna once more breathed freely.
No one could talk about him and Ellen now—­that
disgraceful scandal, which seemed to lower Ellen to
the level of Marsh dairy-girls in trouble, and had
about it too that strange luciferian flavour of “the
sins of Society,” that scandal had been killed,
and its dead body taken away in the Dover mail.